What Is the Best Way to Understand General Relativity?

[OneEyed]

Hello, is this a fairly accurate representation of General Relativity? I'm just trying to make sure I fully understand the theory, before I ask my silly questions.

Edit: I created this picture to help me visualize General Relativity better. As I understand it, 1 meter is a different size at different strengths of gravity.

 

[JaredJames]

I was always under the impression a meter is a meter.

Based on the whole "meter shrinking as gravity increases" premise you have above, does this mean if we could invert gravity a meter would grow?

Also, does it mean a meter on Earth is shorter than in space?

I'm curious now.

 

[Fredrik]

I'm just trying to make sure I fully understand the theory, before I ask my silly questions.

Asking about a silly picture isn't the best way to do that.

A meter is a meter. Maybe there is a way to make sense of what the picture is saying, but I don't want to spend any time decoding stuff like that. I suggest that you start by reading some non-mathematical account of general relativity. The best one is "Black holes and time warps: Einstein's outrageous legacy", by Kip Thorne.

 

[OneEyed]

Asking about a silly picture isn't the best way to do that.

A meter is a meter. Maybe there is a way to make sense of what the picture is saying, but I don't want to spend any time decoding stuff like that. I suggest that you start by reading some non-mathematical account of general relativity. The best one is "Black holes and time warps: Einstein's outrageous legacy", by Kip Thorne.

I created the picture. I wanted to understand why light speed is always constant, but yet as an observer we can see it change speeds. This link, http://www.xs4all.nl/~johanw/PhysFAQ/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/speed_of_light.html helped me understand that. It's because the distance light travels is shrunk. So relative to how compressed 2 frames of reference are, you could theoretically see faster than light, but never experience it at your location.

 

[ZapperZ]

Hello, is this a fairly accurate representation of General Relativity? I'm just trying to make sure I fully understand the theory, before I ask my silly questions.

Is there a reason why you are asking this in the S&D forum and not in the Relativity forum?

Note that if you are trying to air out your own personal theory, it doesn't grant you any more freedom to do that in S&D forum.

Zz.

 

[OneEyed]

Is there a reason why you are asking this in the S&D forum and not in the Relativity forum?

Note that if you are trying to air out your own personal theory, it doesn't grant you any more freedom to do that in S&D forum.

Zz.

I'm not trying to debunk the theory, I'm trying to understand it, last time I got an infraction when posting in Relativity for being a crackpot.

 

[JaredJames]

And I'd say you're not far off another one now if this is just a personal theory of some description.

 

[ZapperZ]

I'm not trying to debunk the theory, I'm trying to understand it, last time I got an infraction when posting in Relativity for being a crackpot.

So you think you can hide in here? The PF Rules are global and applies the same way in this forum as well. If you tried something that would have resulted in an infraction in the Relativity forum, you'll get that same infraction here as well!

And btw, there is a difference between asking question to understand something, versus making unsubstantiated statements. Guess which one you did last time?

This is the wrong forum for this topic.Zz.